First 70 minutes of pushing the ball, then 20 minutes of attacking: the German team also showed against the Netherlands that the fans no longer have to be afraid of the European Championship.
March 27, 2024, 5:06 am
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Page 1 — Neue Deutsche Welle in the pink jersey
Page 2 — With the substitutions came the unorthodox
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In Frankfurt, hand cheese is served in an onion marinade. Traditionally, this hearty regional dish is eaten without a knife or fork. You drink the cider from the Geripptes, a goblet-shaped glass that has diamonds on the outside so that the drink doesn’t slip out of your hands. This is all a pretty oily affair. Apparently someone had spilled a gigantic pot of hand-made cheese onto the lawn of the Frankfurt stadium before the day of the football match between Germany and the Netherlands. Players found no support, especially the Germans.
Before the early goal, Jonathan Tah stumbled, Robert Andrich couldn’t move at the same moment, and Jamal Musiala kept slipping like a puppy on ice. For a long time, the German footballers’ standing problems were the only unforeseeable thing in the second international match after Julian Nagelsmann’s reorganization.
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The rest ran smoothly for a long time. For 70 minutes, his team controlled the action in a skillful and predictable manner. It was ball pushing with class. Then followed 20 minutes of attacking, which brought the 2-1 victory and fueled the hope that this team will not disappoint their country at the home European Championships in the summer.
Germany underwent a radical transformation in ten days. Under Hansi Flick and even in Nagelsmann’s autumn, the team played like a gang of teenagers. They attacked at breakneck speed without protection, and in the end opponents like Malta and Yalta walked through the German gaps. That entertained people, but of course you don’t win anything that way.
Now all of Germany is playing like Kroos
Toni Kroos has now returned. And lo and behold, now the whole of Germany is playing like Toni Kroos: technically pleasing, few mistakes, high standard, low temperature, pass, pass, pass. So exactly the opposite of the old version and definitely a step forward. But also like a novel by Adalbert Stifter. In his novels he described mountains, alpine pastures and precious stones very artfully over dozens of pages without the plot advancing even a millimeter. Studies have shown that the resting heart rate of Stifter readers decreases. And in the Frankfurt stadium it was mostly very quiet for three quarters of the game.
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The statistics showed that Germany had 70 percent ball possession or more, and there was no danger. What the team had previously lacked in structure, they lost against the Netherlands in terms of speed, determination and passion. It was a neat style the way Wirtz, Gündoğan, Andrich, Havertz and Kimmich ran the ball.
But it was also boring. It was Toni Kroos football. As good as his influence may be for the whole, there is also such a thing as too much of a good thing. The dose makes the poison, and Frankfurt received an overdose of Kroos. This is not considered a stimulant. It is recommended that the young people learn something from the star from Madrid. But not everyone has to play like Kroos.